The geopolitical vs. the network political: Internet designers and governance

Abstract

The geopolitical vs. the network political: Internet designers and governance aBsTracTWith the recognition that communication networks in general and the Internet in particular are not only infrastructural but socio-technical in nature comes the responsibility to think such networks through from the perspective of how they influence -and/or are -forms of power and governance. The notion of citizenship is one that appears relative to both social and technical systems, and thus at their conjuncture, because it is the concept through which the rights and responsibilities of individuals relative to governance are refracted. It was in fact the case that citizenship was a concern for those responsible for technical design of the Internet as that history both unfolded through and is recorded in the technical document series known as the Internet Requests for Comments, or RFCs. This paper analyzes the two types of citizenship of concern from the perspective of Internet design -geopolitical (oriented around the state) and network political (oriented around the network) -and interactions between the two as they were discussed within and affected the Internet design process. These network-inspired ideas about citizenship in turn contribute to the ongoing discussion about the evolution of new forms of citizenship in today's environment, including in particular those that are global and/or technological in nature.

The Irony of Internet Governance Research: Metagovernance as Context

“…John Perry Barlow (1996) famously issued a "Declaration of Independence" for those who see themselves first and foremost as citizens of cyberspace, and shortly afterward it became popular to think in terms of the network citizen (Hauben and Hauben 1997). A reading of the Internet RFCs from the perspective of what they say about legal, policy, and political matters over time shows the development of a sense of network citizenship that can conflict with geopolitical citizenship, creating problems for Internet governance (Braman 2013). This author's first exposure to the concept in the mass media was in a Singaporean newspaper in 2000, which used "network citizenship" as a term the readers were assumed to understand to refer to individuals who engaged in political activity online.…”

Emanations of the informational state: Cyber operations and the difficulties

“…Possible conflicts between the responsibilities of a state exercising due diligence and those of an administrator whose focal concern is the network, instead, is a classic example of the kinds of tensions that can arise between what we can call "network citizenship" (primary allegiance to the network) vs. geopolitical citizenship (primary allegiance to one's jurisdictional identity). This potential conflict became evident in discussions among Internet designers within the technical document series (the Requests for Comments, or RFCs) that has provided both the medium for and record of technical decision-making for network protocols (Braman 2014b). …”

Engaging Values Despite Neutrality

“…For example, Coleman (2012) described how shared values are learned among free software developers through processes of acculturation as well as moments of punctuated crisis. Braman’s (2013) historical analyses of Internet Requests For Comments, the memoranda that document the design of Internet standards, illuminate values debated by early network architects, including social values such as privacy, security, democracy, and citizenship. In previous work, I have described the role of values levers : work practices (distinct from interventions) that encourage conversations about values during development (Shilton 2013).…”

“…Internet protocol development, like all technology development, is shaped by biases and political choices with ethical consequences (Braman 2013; DeNardis 2009, 2012). This article draws on a three-year participant observation study of the Named Data Networking (NDN) project, a research collaboration to redesign fundamental internet protocols.…”